e may have been hasty in applying maxims drawn from
Scotland to a more advanced stage of society in England. _December
17._--Robertson's _Charles V._, Plato, began book 10. Chalmers.
Singing-lesson and practice. Whist. Walked on the Glasgow road,
first milestone to fourth and back in 70 minutes--the returning
three miles in about 333/4. Ground in some places rather muddy and
slippery. _December 26._--A feeble day. Three successive callers
and conversation with my father occupied the morning. Read a good
allowance of Robertson, an historian _who leads his reader on_, I
think, more pleasantly than any I know. The style most attractive,
but the mind of the writer does not set forth the loftiest
principles. _December 29th, Sunday._--Twenty-four years have I
lived.... Where is the _continuous_ work which ought to fill up the
life of a Christian without intermission?... I have been growing,
that is certain; in good or evil? Much fluctuation; often a
supposed progress, terminating in finding myself at, or short of,
the point which I deemed I had left behind me. Business and
political excitement a tremendous trial, not so much alleviating as
forcibly dragging down the soul from that temper which is fit to
inhale the air of heaven. _Jan. 8, 1834, Edinburgh._--Breakfast
with Dr. Chalmers. Attended his lecture 2-3.... More than ever
struck with the superabundance of Dr. C.'s gorgeous language, which
leads him into repetitions, until the stores of our tongue be
exhausted on each particular point. Yet the variety and
magnificence of his expositions must fix them very strongly in the
minds of his hearers. In ordinary works great attention would be
excited by the very infrequent occurrence of the very brilliant
expressions and illustrations with which he cloys the palate. His
gems lie like paving stones. He does indeed seem to be an
_admirable_ man.

Of Edinburgh his knowledge soon became intimate. His father and mother
took him to that city, as we have seen, in 1814. He spent a spring there
in 1828 just before going to Oxford, and he recollected to the end of
his life a sermon of Dr. Andrew Thomson's on the Repentance of Judas, 'a
great and striking subject.' Some circumstance or another brought him
into relations with Chalmers, that ripened into friendship. 'We used to
have walks together,'